The first reviews for Ridley Scott‘s "Exodus: Gods And Kings" are rolling in (here’s ours), but there is something surrounding the production that is bigger than the CGI special effects, parting of the Red Sea, and the numerous plagues found in the movie: the controversy over the Hollywood casting of the ancient-Egypt-set story. The director didn’t help matters with his somewhat blasé response citing economic reasons, while Christian Bale defended the filmmaker’s right to cast who he wants, and his own decision to take the lead part. Now, 20th Century Fox honcho Rupert Murdoch has waded into the debate on the most eloquent of platforms: Twitter.
The executive hit the social media site over the Thanksgiving holiday to tell everyone to "calm down" and then share his own views that everyone he knows in Egypt is white, so therefore, case closed when it comes to ‘Exodus.’ Clearly, someone at Fox needs to stop cowering in the presence of the almighty Murdoch and tell him that maybe he should stay off Twitter, but no one will, so this is what happens.
You can check out his tweets below and feel free to sound off in the comments section. After that, a new clip from the movie highlighting one of the plague sequences which is also the visual equivalent of what happens when Rupert Murdoch starts tweeting. "Exodus: Gods And Kings" arrives on December 12th.
Moses film attacked on Twitter for all white cast. Since when are Egyptians not white? All I know are.
— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) November 29, 2014
Everybody-attacks last tweet. Of course Egyptians are Middle Eastern, but far from black. They treated blacks as slaves.
— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) November 29, 2014
Okay, there are many shades of color. Nothing racist about that, so calm down!
— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) November 29, 2014